gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (Music - The Who)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2006-02-03 06:00 pm
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I went down to the Crossroads...

This week's Suppressed Transmission is about Robert Johnson, the Blues great about whom we know less than we know about Shakespeare.

The legend, of course, is that Johnson sold his soul to the Devil at the crossroads of Highways 61 and 49. Seven years later, the Devil collected and Johnson died, leaving behind less than 30 recordings. The article is great, going into all the neat occult possibilities, but it stirred something else in me.

For years I've wanted to run a game based on Friday the 13th: The Series. A group of characters hunting down cursed artifacts/magical tomes for safekeeping.

The item? Robert Johnson's guitar. Play it, and you become a great musician (no matter what your style.. a heavy metal artist would be a wizard with his Stratocaster as long as he rehearsed with that old acoustic before each show.) Of course, all the great artists suffer for their music. The guitar causes misfortune to befall those around the holder even as his skill and fame grows. Oh, the guitar is addictive. Even as friends and family suffer and die, the holder will do anything to keep playing. Until the guitar tires of him (or runs out of victims.) In any event, after seven years the guitar moves on.

It was last known to be in New Orleans in August, 2005...

Even better, what happens when a mild-mannered Juliard student gets ahold of Nicolo Paganini's violin?

[identity profile] isomeme.livejournal.com 2006-02-04 02:15 am (UTC)(link)
I think something very like this idea was written up as a magic item for Pyramid a while back -- last summer, maybe? The cursed instrument could shape change into any stringed instrument (lute, violin, guitar), but its attributes were pretty much as you describe. Might be worth digging up the article.

[identity profile] gridlore.livejournal.com 2006-02-04 03:27 am (UTC)(link)
Could be. I store weird ideas like that and sometimes make strange connections.

[identity profile] chadu.livejournal.com 2006-02-04 07:27 am (UTC)(link)
http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/login/article.html?id=5489

CU

[identity profile] caprine.livejournal.com 2006-02-04 03:04 am (UTC)(link)
Holy crap! How cool!

[identity profile] fimbrethil.livejournal.com 2006-02-04 12:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Cool idea. Friday the 13th used to be one of Liam's favorites as well as mine. Now I watch Poltergiest: The Legacy in reruns on cable, which is very much like it.